Curriculum vitae:

02.05.1979 Born in Lewistown, Montana (USA)
1997-2001
BA Classical Languages, Hope College (Holland, Michigan, USA)
2001-2004
MA Classical Studies, Tulane University (New Orleans, Louisiana. USA)
Thesis: "Livy's Lost Rome: The Tragedy of the Gallic Sack and Pessimism in Ab Urbe Condita" (Prof. Dennis Kehoe, advisor)
2003-2004
Direct Exchange Program, Seminar für Alte Philologie, Freie Universität Berlin (Germany)
2004-2008 Graduate Program in Classics, New York University (New York, USA)
Dissertation (begun in Spring 2008): "Watching History Unfold: The Uses of Viewing in Cassius Dio, Herodian, and the Historia Augusta" (Prof. David Levene, advisor)
2008-2009 Graduate Instructor, Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies, Rome (Italy)
since 2009
PhD student and research assistant at the Graduate School of the Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics”, WWU Münster

PhD project:

Watching history unfold: the uses of viewing in Cassius Dio, Herodian and the Historia Augusta

My dissertation explores the uses of viewing in the late Antonine and Severan narratives of the Roman imperial authors Cassius Dio, Herodian, and the Historia Augusta. On one level, this has to do with how various figures in the narrative are characterized by acts of viewing, being viewed, using or manipulating visual information etc. These instances of viewing, however, can also be read as metahistorical commentary about how historical narrative should be read and written. Basically, viewed objects, events and/or people, along with the spectators who view them, function as analogies for the actions of authors and readers of historical narrative. Understanding this commentary is important for appreciating how my authors defined themselves as literary figures as well as the role they envisioned for their works and the reception of those works by readers. In my authors, the figure of the emperor, the most dominant political and religious individual in the empire, plays one of the most important roles in these instances of viewing and thus in the metahistorical commentary, where he is often used to produce commentary on authorship and the genre of historiography.  

Research interests:

  • Greek and Roman historiography
  • Roman history
  • Numismatics
  • Ancient sociolinguistics

Publications:

  • „Roman Greek: Latinisms in the Greek of Flavius Josephus“ Classical Quarterly 57.2 (2007) 632-649 
  • Rezension von Gavin Kelly, Ammianus Marcellinus: the allusive historian (Cambridge 2008), forthcoming, Classical World

Teaching Experience:

Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies (Rome)

  • 2008-9 Intermediate Greek: Euripides, Medea (2x: Instructor), The Ancient City (2x: Teaching Assistant)

New York University

  • 2008 Greek Tragedy (Teaching Assistant)
  • 2007 Conversations of the West: Antiquity and the 19th Century (Preceptor), Intermediate Greek: Iliad (Instructor)
  • 2006 Intermediate Greek: Plato, Lysias (Instructor), Medieval Latin Reading Group (Facilitator)
  • 2005 Roman Republican History (Teaching Assistant)

Fu Jen Catholic University (Taipei, Taiwan)

  • 2007 Elementary Greek I (Instructor), Intermediate Greek: Xenophon, Anabasis (Instructor)
  • 2006 Elemantary Latin II (Instructor), Intermediate Latin: Prose Selections (Instructor)

Tulane University

  • 2003 Elementary Latin II (Instructor)
  • 2002 Elementary Latin I (Instructor), Pompeii: Roman Society & Culture in Microcosm (Teaching Assistant)
  • 2001 Classical Mythology (Teaching Assistant)

Contact:

Joel Ward
Geiststraße 24 Room 109
D-48151 Münster
Germany
Tel.: +49 251 83-23519
Fax: +49 251 83-23500

Supervisor

Prof. Dr. Johannes Hahn Seminar für Alte Geschichte Domplatz 20-22 Room R 245
D-48143 Münster
Germany
Tel.: +49 251 83-24362
Fax: +49 251 83-24363

Mentor

PD Dr. Rüdiger Schmitt

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